I Have No Intention Of Training The Male Leads - Chapter 10 Part 2

10. Hidden Events (2)

Translated by: ???????

Sergeant Glen looked at Eve’s hand without a word for a moment, then turned around and briefly introduced the rest of his team members.

To be honest, Eve didn’t pay much attention to them, so except for Sergeant Glen, the team leader, the names of the rest of the people flowed in one ear and out the other.

As for the mages, she could only recall that the one with the slightly more auburn hair had the higher rank.

Shortly after each of them had spoken, a steady, rhythmic knocking sound was heard from outside the barn.

One of the men standing by the door heard the knock, looked out through the crack in the door, and opened it.

Two men, whose blue uniforms were covered in dark overcoats, walked into the door, noticed Castel and gave him a salute.

The Empire’s Metropolitan Police Agency was a group that separated from the military after the war, and while they were not the same as soldiers or knights, they still treated Castel with respect to the extent that they felt excessive.

It was an attitude derived from the respect and admiration for a Swordmaster.

After a quick exchange of greetings with the additional arrival of two people, the briefing finally began in earnest.

A map of the neighborhood’s terrain was spread out on a hastily constructed table stacked with wooden crates.

“They’re guarding a total of three barns. One of them was four kilometers northwest of where we are, and the barns were spread out in a triangle like this.”

“You haven’t figured out which building is holding the victims?”

“Our detection magic doesn’t work inside the barns. We’ve been able to determine that there are several people coming and going from time to time, patrolling eight-meter radius around the barn grounds, but we haven’t been able to locate the kidnapped victims.”

“In addition to this, the entrance to the building is equipped with an alarm spell, or at least a magic circle inscribed with that spell. So a frontal assault should be avoided.”

“From the sounds of it, they’ve got alarm spells and shielding spells as well, so they’re quite prepared.”

Eve was a little puzzled, but didn’t speak up.

It was quite a bit too much for them to even have a device designed to that extent just to keep the kidnapped women locked up.

Just as she was beginning to wonder if the gang had the resources to pull this off, Castel turned to Sergeant Glen and asked.

“I thought you said the Vipers were a fledgling mafia group?”

“That’s why I’m guessing this is a bigger deal than we thought. They must have been fully prepared beforehand.”

Castel nodded wordlessly at the sergeant’s answer and urged him to continue.

A mage with curly, dusky auburn hair caught Castel’s gaze and spoke quickly.

“Sergeant Jade, and I will be casting concealment and shielding spells on each of you, but it won’t last long due to the large number of people.”

“How long?”

“Ten minutes at most. If you factor in the time it takes to get to the target and infiltrate it, it’s going to be a little risky.”

“The entry route is a window in the attic above the roof of the barn. The building is old and unoccupied, so we don’t have an exact knowledge of the interior, but we’re guessing that since the target is constructed similarly as the barns on nearby farmland or pastures built around the same year, then they should be similar in shape to this one.”

Eve cocked her head and looked up after he said that.

The barn they were huddled in was a wooden structure with a steeply pitched, almost triangular, vaulted roof and very high ceilings.

There was a narrow second floor space in the attic near the roof, with a long ladder leading down to it.

Furthermore, the first floor of the barn was open and unobstructed, with no cover other than the hay bales, wooden crates, and beams that supported the roof.

Eve’s expression changed subtly.

If she were to be surrounded by a large group of people in a place like this without any preparation, she would be like a rat trapped inside a jar.

“Is this the only way out of the barn?”

Eve asked, while running her hand over the map, and men around her fell silent for a moment.

The men rolled their eyes at each other, not knowing who could answer for her, until one of the mages answered a beat too late.

“Well, if you look at the map… Then Y-yeah… There’s a road that goes this way. If you follow it, you’ll soon then encounter a fork in the road, one that keeps you heading south, and the other one that takes you into the western part of the Kelverton Bridge. There’s another road on the other side, but it was blocked off by the town a long time ago.”

“Ah, I see.”

Eve smiled lightly and nodded.

After that, the team was quickly organized, as if they had decided it a long time ago.

There were three barns in total, so the infiltrating squad would be split into three teams.

Eve would move with Sergeant Glen and Castel.

“This is a flashbang, A mounted patrol is blocking the road not far away. If you’re stuck in a pinch just pull out the safety pin, throw it, and detonate it, and your location will be signaled to us right away.”

Eve received a flashbang from the sergeant just before departure.

She could see a magic circle etched into its body, along with a small mana circuit.

It was probably enchanted to transmit its location upon impact.

She gently turned the flashbang over in her palm, inspected it, then slipped it into her pocket.

The sun had long since slipped over the horizon.

Taking advantage of the nightfall, the squad, who arrived by running silently close to the barn with the help of mages, hid their horses well and exchanged radio signals with each other.

They then scattered exactly as they had planned, which was away from the watchful eyes of the guards patrolling the area.

Sergeant Glen was quite worried about Eve, but his eyes widened a little after seeing her climb the walls of the barn, where the maroon paint had peeled away to reveal the dull wood color in places, with the dexterity of a spider.

He then followed her up the wall, while skillfully sticking his hands into the cracks of the wooden walls.

The three men, who climbed onto the roof in an instant without a sound, tried to carefully open the small attic window near the eaves of the roof.

Of course, as expected, it wouldn’t open. Eve pulled the dagger from her hip, handed it over to Castel, and traced a circle on the glass with her finger.

Castel quickly understood what she meant, so he gave her a nod, covered the dagger with aura, then cut through the opaque, low-grade glass in front of him.

Castel handed the dagger back to Eve, after carefully removing the circular shard of glass.

He then slipped his hand through the gap to push up the lock on the window.

The hinges made an unpleasant creaking noise, since they haven’t been greased for a long time, and it was quite a while before the three of them were able to get beyond the pane.

So they opened in as little movement as possible in case anyone heard the noise.

The attic of the barn was low enough that Eve had to twist her neck slightly to stand without touching the ceiling.

Furthermore, the building was in such bad shape, as if it had been abandoned for quite some time, that she had to step very carefully to avoid it from creaking.

Castel found the ladder to the lower level, after bending his waist.

He then moved cautiously, with his complexion suddenly stiffening.

The first floor below the ladder was crowded with armed men.

The atmosphere was tension-free, with the occasional joke or giggle, but the number of serpentines, all over thirty, was not negligible.

After peering down through the gap where the ladders connected, Eve muttered in a low whisper,

“It’s a trap.”

The other two swallowed hard, as if to agree with her.

Not that armed serpentines were a threat to them, of course, but it was because a group this size was waiting and digging for a trap for them, of this magnitude meant that progress of their investigation had leaked out somewhere.

“Let’s see, there’s got to be at least one of them who knows where the women were.”

Eve spat out the harsh words casually, then pulled out her longsword from its sheath.

After hearing the cold, metallic clank, Castel immediately said with a grimace,

“With a group of this size, there must be a leader commanding from behind the scenes.”

“The other two must be traps, too. We can only hope there’s a lead here.”

Sergeant Glen’s expression changed somewhat at Castel’s commanding tone, it was slightly uncharacteristic for a member of the Knights under his command, but given the circumstances, he quickly turned away and skillfully hid his expression.

The three men exchanged a glance, signaled each other, and then jumped down the ladder, not even daring to climb down it.

It was a height that would have been daunting for a normal person, but for an aura tuner, it was nothing.

After landing on the ground with a light touch, Eve stabilized herself and swung her longsword at the neck of a serpent-headed man perched on a nearby crate.

In the blink of an eye, the man’s throat was severed in half, and red blood gushed out from the long gash like a fountain.

The sticky smell of blood immediately caused everyone in the barn to close their mouths and turn their heads.

Eve flicked her sword in the air, brushing the blood away, and smiled in satisfaction at the dozens of pairs of eyes on her.

“Hey, who’s the big guy here, come out we’ve got something nice to say!”

The concealment spell seemed to have been lifted at the right time.

Castel’s brow narrowed in embarrassment at the sudden attention Eve had attracted, and Sergeant Glen drew the sword at his waist as the air around him sharpened.

“Oh, you crazy s—…!”

“What are you doing, kill them!”

It wasn’t just the two of them who panicked, but their enemies as well.

As they watched the swordsman suddenly drop from the sky and nonchalantly slit their companion’s throat, their expressions turned from bewilderment to ferocity.

BANG!

The loud sound of a gun being fired came from somewhere, accompanied by cursing.

Eve, already sensing movement, quickly twisted to dodge the bullet, and the blind shot sailed right past her and into the forehead of a man whose exposed flesh was covered in scales.

“Ugh!”

The man stumbled backwards, jerking suddenly as if he had been electrocuted.

As if a signal, the surrounding serpentines immediately began to charge at the three, swinging their weapons at them.

‘Magin Gun? A fledgling organization is actually armed with these expensive guns? This is too much!’

Eve thought to herself as she sidestepped a heavy axe that came crashing down on her head with a simple step.

The silver blade of her longsword swung in a fluid trajectory, and red blood splattered along the stream of metal that followed the strike.

Soon agonized groans and shrieks of pain erupted in time with Eve’s movements.

After dodging the stabbing knives and bullets aimed at her with the fluidity of a fish moving through water, Eve lowered herself to sweep around the floor.

She could feel the texture of human flesh and muscle on her fingertips through the finely honed blade.

“Crack!”

“Aaaah!”

“Damn it, it’s only three of them!”

“Die!”

?